Lay Your Ship Bare
by Morte Rouge
Summary: Early in his ninth incarnation, the Doctor finds a mysterious young woman in the TARDIS.  He can accept that a future version of himself has given her a key - but why is she here, now?
1. In which the Doctor runs out of tea

**1. In which the Doctor runs out of tea (or: Prologue)**

_VWORP. VWORP. VWORP. VWORP._

Battered leather jacket flung over the seat beside him, the Doctor leaned back in his chair, savoring the best sound in the world—and a cup of apple tea.

Heretofore he'd been strictly an Earl Grey sort of man, but this afternoon (if it was still afternoon) he'd gone into the kitchen—well, _a_ kitchen, as the TARDIS had eight—and found himself suddenly out of Earl Grey. A mildly frantic rummage through the seven other kitchens had proved equally unsuccessful save for a small, dingy box of apple tea on the bottom shelf of one or other of the pantries the Doctor had devastated in his search. Despite the pitiful state of the package, and the fact that the Doctor could not for the life of him figure out which of his companions had been an apple tea drinker, the teabags themselves had smelled sweet and fresh: the result of the curious preservative effect of time travel on the food one time-traveled with.

It certainly was an occasion for a good cup of tea. The last month had been rather eventful. Just hours earlier, the Doctor had saved a family from perishing aboard the _Titanic _by enabling the father to find work in Southampton and remain in England. Almost disappointingly low-tech, that was. Still, he'd only even glimpsed his new face a few weeks ago, while confronting the Nestene Consciousness about its most recent attack on Earth: Deprived of its food planets by the last, great Time War, the Consciousness had attempted to infiltrate Earth via shop-window dummies.

_The Time War._ The Doctor sighed, scrubbing a hand through his cropped hair. His head throbbed—not with the presence of other Time Lords, any longer, but with the effort he made to suppress his memories of the war. Despite his efforts, his mind presented him with bits and pieces: screaming, and the horrible grating sound that passed for laughter among Daleks. Dismembered TARDISes. His first glimpse of the Nightmare Child. Legion upon legion of Daleks. Fires, so many fires. The dead, scattered on the ground like so many leaves in autumn. The final explosion—the searing pain of regeneration—

And then, falling to Earth in the TARDIS like a meteor. His first encounters with people in his new body: a frightened passer-by, the kind elderly lady at the Oxfam he'd stumbled into, still clad in a waistcoat and frilly cravat. (It was here that he'd found the leather jacket of which he'd since become fond, initially purchased as a cover for his somewhat attention-grabbing Victorian garb.)

Nor had all of his endeavors since his regeneration been successful. Just days ago, he'd prevented an inhabitant of the planet Khorno, incredibly well-versed in human history, from assassinating U.S. President Kennedy in a misguided attempt to create a stable time loop. Unfortunately, Lyarvyozold's murderous ambition had been fulfilled by his human near-namesake.

Despite his extended exposure to Earth recently, the Doctor hadn't taken on any new companions. Sometimes, given his newly bitter, cynical nature, this was just fine with him. But at other times, he couldn't help but concede it was a shame. After all, companions weren't just a source of conversation—they tended to be extremely helpful, he reminded himself dryly. If not for Ace, he wouldn't have had a small stockpile of bombs to choose from when he'd blown up a department store (not for fun, but in the process of battling the Nestene Consciousness). If not for Rose Tyler, a young woman he'd met in that same store, he'd be dead now.

He just wished she'd accepted his offer of companionship, that was all.

The Doctor's hand hovered briefly over the cream and sugar before he reminded himself that this wasn't his Earl Grey, but a new tea, one he'd never tasted before, and he ought to give it a chance first: as if it was some species of dangerous alien, not an innocent fruit tea. The Doctor poked a tentative finger into the cup he held in his other hand. Satisfied with the temperature, he lifted the faintly-steaming cup to his lips and drank.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that inhaling one's food or drink is never a good idea, however often one tries it. Wheezing, the Doctor nearly dropped his teacup as he doubled over.

The apple tea, as the Doctor had realized long before he'd stopped coughing sufficiently to articulate the thought, was all wrong. It was much, _much_ too sweet for his taste (although it did actually taste like apples). He might as well have heated up some apple cider, and drunk that, he thought, disappointed. Bugger. He was just going to have to run out and purchase tea.

Leaping from his seat, the Doctor consulted the scanner before setting his course for a Sainsbury's in London. He opened a drawer in the TARDIS's console, found a thick green notepad, scrawled "tea" in a large bold hand, and tore off the page, which also read "eggs," "pasta," "peas," "socks," and "assorted sandwiches (cheese/salmon, bacon)."

In due course the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor (having also extracted a thick leather wallet, full of pound-note-sized strips of psychic paper, from the drawer) set off down the street at a brisk pace.

Despite having just emerged from a large, recently-materialized blue police box one block away from the Sainsbury's in question, the Doctor attracted little attention as he walked. In dark trousers, muted jumper and black leather jacket, he was dressed simply and inconspicuously, just the way he liked it.

The Doctor's life is not entirely as fraught with danger as he would have anyone believe. In fact, nine times out of ten he is able to go shopping without incident. Tonight, the Doctor thought, allowing himself a small smile, might just be one of the nine times (although he had not been able to purchase new socks).

However, the Doctor is also mistaken more often than he would like anyone to believe. Tonight was the one time out of ten that the Doctor would go out to buy eggs and tea, and come back surprised. It didn't help that the surprise didn't come until the Doctor had got inside the TARDIS, closing the door behind him.

As he puttered around, stowing his wallet and trying to remember which way his favorite kitchen was, a door on the other side of the control room opened. A young woman with curly hair strode through, saw the Doctor, stopped abruptly, and dropped the plastic carton she was holding.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" yelled the Doctor.

"Shit," said the woman.


	2. In which time is very wibbly wobbly

**2. In which time is very wibbly-wobbly**

"Shit," said the young woman. She shoved curly hair behind her ears and smiled widely in an apologetic sort of way. "I'm so sorry. I was supposed to meet…a friend of mine, here, and I guess I mistook—"

"Rubbish," spat the Doctor. "You're trying to tell me that your bloke's car looks like this police box?"

"Not my bloke, not a car, and not a police box," the girl reeled off in a single breath. "Otherwise it wouldn't be so big on the inside, now would it? It's a TARDIS: which stands for Time And Rel—"

"—Relative Dimension In Space," the Doctor interrupted sharply, peering at her. "I know that. And I bet you knew I knew it, too. The question is: how did _you_ know?"

She grinned even wider, but it was more smug than apologetic this time. "I've been here before. I didn't mistake it for _another _TARDIS. This is _the_ TARDIS. The only one left in existence." She looked around, wrinkling her nose slightly. "But, um, the console room looks different. Archaic. I would know, I'm at the Luna University right now, studying archaeology. I love old things. Tombs…TARDISes…" She winked. "Time Lords."

"But—Never mind." The Doctor shook his head, trying to suppress surges of both anger and curiosity. He couldn't help expressing both. "How the _hell_ did you get in here?"

Once again, though, the girl seemed undaunted by his anger. Raising an eyebrow, she held up a small, glinting object. "Same way you did. I've got a key."

"You've got a key."

"Yes," she prompted the Doctor as though he were slow-witted—which, given his dazed repetition of her words, wasn't too big of an assumption to make, he thought disgustedly. "You gave it to me. _Will_ give it to me. I'm sorry. You'd think I'd be used to the whole dislocated time stream by now, but I'm really not."

The Doctor studied her for a long moment. It really was a simple explanation. Not that simple ever necessarily meant "true." "You'd be a future companion of mine, then? What's your name?"

"River. River Song," she said primly.

"Bit hippie, that."

River Song raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Bit _rich_, that. I mean, coming from you, who don't even have a name, _Doctor_."

The Doctor was not amused. He scowled at her.

But River didn't care. She continued blithely. "I suppose if you want to get technical, River's not my given name. It's just what people call me. But it'll do, won't it?"

"What's your given name?"

River smiled. "That, Doctor dear, is what people on Earth like to call 'spoilers.'"

"Don't call me dear," the Doctor snapped. He wished whatever future incarnation of himself River Song knew had thought to warn her that she was dealing with a much less patient version of him. Who knew? Maybe she was used to worse as he got older, a cranky old man. But anger was swiftly fading in the face of wild curiosity; and anyways, he'd picked up on something else. "You say 'people on Earth' as if you're not from here…"

"I'm not."

"Then how…?"

River held up her forearm. The Doctor had initially taken the band around her wrist for a watch, but now, as he approached her, he saw it was a vortex manipulator. "But then, where are you—" he began.

"I told you. Spoilers."

The Doctor was beginning to be aware that River didn't seem to have any compunction about interrupting, patronizing or otherwise annoying him; she now chuckled at some private joke. "I'm going to begin saying that to you quite a lot. I know it for a fact. After all, you tol—will tell me. I mean, you told me when I was younger. But that was when _you_ were—hold on—" River hoisted a canvas messenger bag from her shoulder and riffled through until she produced a small blue leather book. The Doctor couldn't help but notice that with its square embellishments and deep color, the book resembled the TARDIS.

River opened the book, which appeared to be a recently-begun journal, to the back cover and pulled a small stack of photographs out of the attached folder. Shuffling them, she said absently, "I've known you for most of my life in your eleventh incarnation—" without even looking up River tucked the corresponding photo back into her journal before the Doctor could get a good look at it "—and while this is my first time, you said you would be sending me into your past to help you. So I ought not to have been surprised just then. But you sent me co-ordinates and I assumed it was the Doctor I already know. I had a nasty shock when I saw you instead of, um, later you."

"Thanks so much."

"Pleasure." River sighed, assessing what else to explain. "I _suppose_ I gave you a nasty shock too. You did warn me that you wouldn't remember my visit—which I thought odd. You said that the only reason you knew you had to send me, was because an older me tells him, I mean you, _to_ send me. By then, it'll all be written down in my journal, which I use to keep track of my meetings with you. Which you gave me." She finished her breathless explanation and looked up at the Doctor. Up close, River's gray-green eyes were intense, wide with excitement. "Have you got that?"

The Doctor paused before replying. "Yeah, I think so."

River giggled. "It confused the hell out of you, the first time I tried to explain it. Finally you mumbled something about 'wibbly-wobblies' and made me write it down." She pulled another photo out of the stack. "And here _you_ are." She passed the photo over to the Doctor. "I've got a picture of all eleven of your regeneration cycles, so far, but other than _my_ Doctor—I mean, your eleventh incarnation—I've no idea what order you've been regenerating in." She flipped through the nine photos she was still holding: a man in an overly long scarf taking a walk with a robot dog on a leash; a man with an umbrella, the handle of which was in the shape of a question mark; an elderly-looking man with his arm around a thin girl with short hair, a little younger than River (she guessed); a tall skinny man in a pinstripe suit and glasses, alone. "I suppose it's a bit silly, but can you _please_ tell me which regeneration cycle you're—Doctor?"

The Doctor hadn't heard most of what she was saying. He was studying the photo of himself intently.

The picture had been taken in front of the TARDIS; in Cardiff, judging from the buildings in the background. A grinning, handsome man in a blue shirt lounged against the open door of the TARDIS, a man the Doctor had never seen before. But comparatively speaking, the man wasn't important. What had attracted the Doctor's attention was that a) he himself was laughing in this picture, laughing as he had not in months, and b) he seemed to be laughing with the third person in the picture, a blonde girl.

Rose Tyler. Undeniably.

"This girl," he began, unsure how much River knew about his future. "I've met her. Her name is Rose Tyler."

River gave an almost imperceptible start at the name. However, she said evenly, "You've told me about her."

The Doctor stared. It wasn't his way to discuss and dissect his previous companions with every new person who came along. Besides—what was there to tell? "But I've only met her once," he said blankly. "For several days. None of which were in Cardiff. I offered to take her traveling with me; she refused." He looked back at the picture. "I suppose we meet again, after all? Strange. How could she find me twice?"

River looked smug beyond all reason. "Spoilers!"

"_Spoilers_…" the Doctor repeated, frustrated. "If you really do begin saying that all the time, River Song, I will strangle you."

"No thanks," she said breezily. "I've never been an S&M sort of girl. So _that's_ Rose?" she asked interestedly, leaning over the picture before the Doctor could recover his powers of speech. "Well, well. You do prefer blondes."

The Doctor glanced at River's thick curls. They were a dirty sort of blonde, but blonde nevertheless. This did not please him. "Yes, that's Rose," he finally managed. "And if you're not going to tell me any more about her, let's get down to business. You say that in my eleventh body, I'll be sending you here to help me?"

"Yes," said River, suddenly serious. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her jeans pocket and opened it, scanning a short note which, the Doctor was not altogether surprised to see, was in his own handwriting. River looked up at the Doctor again, her eyes twinkling despite her grave expression. "How much do you know about the explosion of Krakatoa?"


	3. In which sushi is eaten

**3. In which sushi is eaten**

"Krakatoa?" repeated the Doctor uneasily. "Did I have something to do with that, then?"

"I suppose so," grinned River. "But…first things first." She picked up the plastic carton she'd dropped earlier, which had been lying forlornly on the floor of the TARDIS, and shook it gently at him. "Sushi?"

"Oh! That reminds me," the Doctor realized. "I left my bag of groceries by the door." He didn't need to explain what had driven all thought of groceries from his mind.

"Well, we ought to put them away, then," River decided. "We can eat in the kitchen, anyways. Which one are you using now, then?"

"Northwest," the Doctor managed, flustered, as he followed River (instead of the other way round, he couldn't help but notice) down the hallway. He noticed nervously that River navigated hallways, anterooms and dimensional bridge-port generators almost as well as he did. As though she, too, lived here. Or something. "River?"

"Doctor?" River's voice echoed in the corridor they were crossing.

"You said you've known me since you were quite young?"

Her laugh rang out, magnified by the echoey acoustics. The Doctor wasn't sure why River was laughing. He wasn't even sure why it so unnerved him. "I have."

"And…?"

"Spoi—"

"Fine," snapped the Doctor. They proceeded in silence for a few minutes.

"Good boy," said River eventually. "I'll tell you this, then: I believe we're more or less traveling in opposite directions.

"I'm told you held me as a baby," River added as a sort of teasing afterthought. "But I doubt that counts."

They stepped into the kitchen, which was minimal: white, metal, and pale wood dominated the scene. "Posh, isn't this? I'll really be glad when you move into the south kitchen."

The Doctor spluttered. "The one that looks like it came out of a Harry Potter novel? Garish yellow? Badger cookie jar?"

"The very same," smirked River, holding the refrigerator door open as the Doctor put the eggs, frozen peas, and sandwiches in. "Besides, you're _very_ Hufflepuff by then—"

"Oh, fuck."

"—even if you're a bit Ravenclaw right now," finished River. "Snarky. Sarcastic. A genius. I suppose you might be a Slytherin, though…I found a very good Sorting Hat Quiz online the other day. I've got my laptop. Want a go?"

The Doctor's voice was muffled as he stowed pasta and his precious Earl Grey in the pantry—which was fortunate, as what he said was unprintable.

"Sorry, sweetie?"

The Doctor ignored the endearment. "You were saying something about the first time you met me?" he prompted pointedly.

To his great relief, River took the hint without comment. "The first time I met you, I was…quite young. A young adult, if you will…and a 900-something man showed up. Amazing, brilliant, wonderful, and absolutely barking mad. And a good man." River was clutching the carton of sushi with both hands now. "But you had my number, as they say. You knew all about me. My real name. You even knew my parents. My—background." Her voice broke. "And of course, I resisted strenuously at first. Tried to kill you once or twice. Finally—" River broke off, glancing nervously at the Doctor. She seemed too agitated even to make a quip about spoilers to cover the sticky moment. When he didn't press her for the rest, River resumed. "But once I was convinced you were worth it…"

She gave her head a little shake as if to clear it, and looked at the Doctor as he sat down at the table. "And I know we've years to go. But as I've got older I worked out that if we really _are_ going in opposite directions, someday we'll meet again and you'll have no idea who I am. Not today," she elaborated, as the Doctor opened his mouth. "You told me once that we had decades and decades ahead of us. But if it's anything like today has been, I think I'll go mad."

The Doctor felt sorry for River Song. He looked at the young woman, her lovely face defiant even in melancholy, and knew what it was like to go around being clever and cocky despite a looming past—or future, as it were. But he didn't feel there was anything to say. So instead he got up, pulled out a chair, took the plastic carton out of River's hands and opened it on the table. "Sushi?"

River looked at him as if he was mental.

"Decades and decades," he reminded her, surprising both of them with a real smile (well, it wasn't every day one rendered someone like River speechless).

After a moment, River smiled back—a smile of comfort, as opposed to her usual smug/spoiler smile—and sat down, producing packets of soy sauce, ginger, and real wasabi, and chopsticks from her bag.

The Doctor was taken aback. "How much can you fit in there?"

"Maybe my bag is bigger on the inside," River winked. "Now, I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I got two rolls that are both good, and you can choose the one you fancy. This one is essentially California rolls covered in various raw fish, and that one is tempura shrimp with masago."

"You know," said the Doctor, indicating the first sushi roll, "I never did understand why they're called California rolls. Probably something obvious, such as being invented in California…"

"Well, that _is_ where I got them. There's this little place an hour outside of San Francisco…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

River raised an eyebrow right back. "Vortex manipulator," she prompted.

"Never mind all of time and space, you could have gone to _Japan_ for sushi. And you went to a little place in the States."

"A tried-and-true place," protested River. "I haven't been to Japan yet."

The Doctor stared, shrugged, and fiddled with the chopsticks."Time and space."

"No, wait, those are mine," exclaimed River. She handed the Doctor the wooden take-out pair.

"You've got _Star Wars_ chopsticks shaped like purple lightsabers." He couldn't help but laugh as he handed them over.

River opened the wasabi, spread a generous amount in one corner of her plate with her lightsaber chopsticks, and doused it in soy sauce before replying. She indicated the wooden utensils in his hands. "And you don't even know how to _use_ chopsticks."

"Of course I do!" protested the Doctor, stabbing at his California roll.

"They're not stilettos," River chuckled, rising and coming around to his side of the table. "Not that you'd be using them right if they were, anyways. You hold _this_ one firm, like a pencil…yes…and you hold the other between your thumb and forefinger—no—like…so." River reached out, adjusting the Doctor's fingers.

He sighed. "Are you enjoying this, then?"

"Oh, yes." River squeezed his hand once or twice, released it and returned to her seat. Picking up her own chopsticks with a certain awkwardness that made the Doctor feel inordinately smug, she arranged them in her hand in the same positions she'd just shown him. "Now you can move the second one independently, and that picks up the sushi." Without further ado, she began eating. The Doctor followed suit.

It was a quiet meal. The Doctor was hungry, and just a bit resentful—as much because of River's unprecedented, unwelcome arrival as because it didn't annoy him quite as much as it probably ought to, which in turn _was _annoying (if he was annoyed _enough_, she might leave, mightn't she?); and between bites, River stared at the Doctor whenever he wasn't looking.

The Doctor she'd fallen for was incredibly young-looking, compared to the incarnation who sat across from her; River had in studying his photographs entertained the notion that the older he _looked_, the younger he _was_. But that was too simple, wasn't it?

_Her _Doctor was a bit baby-faced, with his expressive lips, wide forehead and floppy hair. He could act as if he was nine or nine hundred on the turn of a dime, and this strangely suitable contrast was completely charming—at least to her. In her own various incarnations River had never felt any maternal instinct whatsoever (perhaps as much due to her upbringing among clerics of the Church as well as the severe lack of parental guidance until much later in life, when she'd finally found Amy and Rory again), but there was something about the Doctor that made her want to reach out and take him in her arms, although not always necessarily in a motherly way, of course.

She almost always, however, smothered these impulses. It was hard enough trying to get a snog out of the Doctor (seeing as she had once killed him with paralyzing lipgloss) without her getting all clingy.

River picked up a piece of sushi with her fingers without thinking, and stuffed it into her mouth (earning her an odd look from her dining companion, which she didn't notice).

The Doctor she was now eating with could not have been more different. He was not nearly as talkative, or as childlike, or as attractive as the man she adored. Instead of floppy hair, this Doctor had short-cropped hair, and huge ears and nose. He dressed very simply and in dark colors, nothing at all like her Doctor whose clothes reminded her of elderly college professors, with a dash of Simon and Garfunkel.

However, River couldn't be sure which man trusted her more.

Oh, there were days, weeks even, when _her_ Doctor was like a second self, a kindred spirit, and all that. They'd steer the TARDIS together, and they'd put on some music and sing along. He'd flirt, he'd grin, he'd call her absolutely brilliant and indispensable—but there were times, during an argument or even glances stolen when he thought she was busy, when the Doctor looked at her as if remembering vividly that she had been raised to kill him. And had succeeded before, notwithstanding the sacrifice she'd subsequently made to resurrect him. "As far as first dates go," he told her mock-sternly one day, with a wag of his finger, "I'd say that's mixed signals."

On the other hand, this dark, taciturn Doctor obviously didn't like her. He obviously didn't welcome the intrusion. He obviously didn't quite believe that he himself would one day write a note along the lines of "Come along, Song! We're going to blow up Krakatoa. Meet me at 3096/487 by 142/peach. Bring sushi."

But the thing was, this Doctor was quite willing to hare off to Krakatoa with her, at least as far as River could tell. Would _her _Doctor have trusted her so far?

River wasn't an idiot; she knew that her Doctor would, eventually, come to trust her enough to send her into his past like this. She just wished that the man she was eating sushi with, and the man who she'd last seen a month ago (in her own time-stream)—the man with whom she'd traveled to Filidoos and nearly been eaten by carnivorous beings resembling blobs of ice cream—trusted her _already_.

"I'll do the washing-up."

River started, as much out of distraction as because the Doctor was being kind to her. She hastily forced her features into a smirk. "I brought takeout. There's no washing-up to do, just a bit of throwing-away."

"I'll wash the chopsticks then," offered the Doctor, removing hers from the edge of her takeout carton and carrying them to the large sink.

She laughed. "Doctor, why are you suddenly being such a kiss—"

At that, the Doctor threw her lightsaber chopsticks unceremoniously into the sink. "I am trying," he interrupted, gritting his teeth, "to do something productive while you tell me all about what I will, apparently, send you here to do. Enough prevarication."

"Wasn't the sushi good?" River asked innocently.

The Doctor's eye twitched.

"Best I ever had," he admitted, tersely. "But that is not the point. You're an archaeologist. You've already done the research. So tell me about Krakatoa. Tell me what we have to do."


End file.
